When Joe Thorne was fifteen, his little sister, Annie, disappeared. At the time, Joe thought it was the worst thing in the world that could ever happen. And then she came back. But she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say what had happened to her. Now Joe has returned to the village where he grew up, to work as a teacher. Joe has bad debts – and bad people – he needs to escape. He’s also received an anonymous email: I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SISTER. But coming back to the place he grew up means opening old wounds, and confronting old enemies and the things they did. Joe is about to discover that places, like people, have secrets. The deeper you go, the darker they get. And sometimes, you should never come back.

This is a belting story where the words just crawl under your skin to heighten every sensation you have way after you finish reading and turn out the lights. I have the habit of being attracted to a book by its cover, the ones that stand out, rather than me reading the blurb. This was one of those books and it made this story even more creepy because creepy it was, well bloody terrifying is the proper word. It is one of those stories that make you feel that you are being watched, even sat in your own house with the curtains drawn.

Joe Thorne had come home after a long time being away and got himself an English teaching position in the school he had attended as a teenager and he had taken a lease out on a lovely little property that had been owned by the teacher who had his job before him. Both had become vacant when she murdered her son and killed herself. Whoa there those words go again marching up and down under my skin!

Joe had come back to find out answers to questions he had from being a 15-year-old boy when his 8-year-old sister had disappeared from her bed one night and turned back up 48 hours later very different to the girl she had been when she left. Soon after Joe’s dad, his sister and himself were in a car crash, only he survived. Now no-one wanted Jack back stirring up the past.

Joe had huge problems that were to follow him back here, a past that wanted to stay buried and memories that never wanted to be faced. I loved how Joe’s character unwound as the story unfolded. OMG could this story get any creepier? Too right it could, I didn’t know whether to be scared of the past or the present. The past couldn’t hurt anyone could it? Joe has his work cut out in this ex-mining Nottingham village trying to end the second generation bullies in school and solve dark and disturbing secrets from the past. The characters are absolute corkers each and every one of them. The story outstanding and my nerves totally shattered!

I wish to thank NetGalley and the publisher Michael Joseph, for an e-copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly.

HERE IS A LITTLE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C. J. Tudor lives with her partner and young daughter. Her love of writing, especially the dark and macabre, started young. When her peers were reading Judy Blume, she was devouring Stephen King and James Herbert.

Over the years she has had a variety of jobs, including trainee reporter, radio scriptwriter, dog walker, voiceover artist, television presenter, copywriter and, now, author.

Her first novel, The Chalk Man, was a Sunday Times bestseller and sold in thirty-nine territories.